Fri Feb 24, 2012 at 09:00:00 AM EST

President

Georgia: A new Rasmussen survey in Georgia finds Newt Gingrich with a small lead in the GOP presidential race with 33%, followed by Rick Santorum at 28%, Mitt Romney at 20% and Ron Paul at 9%. The Georgia primary is on March 6.

Huntsman: Despite endorsing Mitt Romney this year, Jon Huntsman called for a third party movement in American politics. "Someone's going to step up at some point and say we've had enough of this," he said. "The real issues are not being addressed, and it's time that we put forward an alternative vision, a bold thinking. We might not win, but we can certainly influence the debate." Huntsman ruled out a third party bid for himself.

Indiana: Rick Santorum looks like he will get on the Indiana ballot after all. The Marion County Board of Voter Registration initially said Santorum fell eight signatures short of the 500 needed in Indiana's 7th District when he filed for Indiana's May primary. But board member Cindy Mowery said she recertified Santorum for the ballot with 500 signatures Thursday morning.

Michigan: A new Mitchell/Rosetta Stone poll in Michigan taken the night after the CNN debate shows Mitt Romney leading Rick Santorum 36 to 33%, with Ron Paul at 12%, followed by Newt Gingrich at 9%. Undecided voters dropped in half to 11%. A third of the voters (33%) said that Romney won the debate compared to only 13% who said Santorum, 10% who said Paul, and 9% who said Gingrich.

Senate

Florida: The Florida Senate race turned nasty when former Sen. George LeMeiux held a press conference and said, "Connie Mack IV is the Charlie Sheen of Florida politics. Mack IV does not have the temperament or the character to serve in the United States Senate." LeMeiux was referencing a Miami Herald story that detailed four physical confrontations Mack had when he was in his early 20s, one arrest and then a host of financial troubles that became clear during his divorce shortly after he was elected to Congress.

Missouri: Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has endorsed Rep. Todd Akin in the Senate race. Huckabee will appear in southwest Missouri for a rally on behalf of Akin in Joplin on March 3. A St. Louis area candidate, Akin's ability to cut into Sarah Steelman's base of support in the southwest will be critical to his chances.

Montana: A Rasmusses Reports poll of the Montana Senate race finds Rep. Denny Rehberg with a three point lead over incumbent Sen. John Tester. Rehberg leads 47 to 44% with 5% undecided.

Nevada: The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee is launching a new round of Spanish language radio ads targeting Sen. Dean Heller that calls the senator "another Sharron Angle" running "an anti-Latino campaign" tying him to the former Senate candidate who was unpopular with voters and Latinos in particular last year.

North Dakota: Rep. Rick Berg is out with his first television ad of his Senate campaign, a biographical spot which stars his mom and only mentions his support for a balanced budget amendment.

House

AZ-6: Sen. Jon Kyl has endorsed Rep. Ben Quayle in his member versus member matchup with Rep. David Schweikert. Kyl said that Quayle's voting record is closest to his in the Arizona delegation. "And he's approached the issues in a very thoughtful way," the senator said, "so I think he deserves my support."

LA-4: Democrats are said to be courting Brian Crawford, former Shreveport fire chief and currently the city's assistant chief administrative officer, to take on Rep. John Fleming this year. Democrats point out the fact that Fleming defeated Democratic candidate Paul Carmouche in 2008 by only 350 votes and that the election was moved to another date other than the presidential election because of problems caused by hurricanes in the state. However, with the district only giving Obama 40% in 2008, any Democrat will have an uphill race here.

NJ: Roll Call is out with race ratings for New Jersey house races. They forcast a 6-6 delegation from the current 7 Democrats to 6 Republicans. Rep. Jon Runyan may have the most competitive race, facing the widow of former Rep. John Adler. The 3rd District is rated lean Republican.

OH-3: Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi has endorsed former Rep. Mary Joe Kilroy in the primary for OH-3 by giving her two $2,000 campaign contributions. A recent Public Policy Polling survey, commissioned by candidate Joyce Beatty, showed the former Ohio House Democratic Leader in a virtual tie with Kilroy. That survey, taken this week, put Kilroy at 35 percent to Beatty's 34 percent.

PA-12: Rep. Jason Altmire hit back over charges from the Critz campaign that he did not have enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. "After reviewing the baseless challenge to my campaign's nominating petitions, the facts are as clear today as they were when the petitions were filed - we have met the required threshold of 1,000 valid signatures to appear on the primary ballot," Altmire said in a statement. A hearing has been scheduled for March 2 in Pittsburgh.

Governor

Ohio: Former Gov. Ted Strickland has not ruled out a rematch with Gov. John Kasich in 2014. Strickland was among the 35 people named as national co chairmen for President Barack Obama's reelection campaign this week.

Texas: Rick Perry told the Texas Tribune that he is leaning toward running for reelection in 2014 and possibly again for the White House two years after that. There are no term limits in Texas. If he does run, Perry could wind up serving a total of 18 years in the governor's office and would complicate the plans of others who are thought preparing to run for governor. At the top of that list would be Attorney General Greg Abbott.

Redistricting

Missouri: The Senate Apportionment Commission approved a tentative state Senate redistricting plan. A special panel of appellate judges drew a map after the commission deadlocked last year, but the Missouri Supreme Court rejected that map in January, and the process started from scratch with the appointment of a new redistricting commission.

[Kinzinger] is solidly conservative and an independent thinker. He has the energy, smarts and presence to aggressively represent his constituents. He can be a game-changer on the national level. Kinzinger represents the best of a new generation in politics, and he is endorsed.
- Chicago Tribune Editorial Board, 2/24/2012

From IL-09, familial roots in MI-14, college in PA-02/07, and working for the summer in DC-AL.

Jackson was smooth, but man, is Halvorson bad. I have no idea how she was ever Majority Leader of the State Senate. That blowout loss makes a ton of sense now; she must have been one of the most politically inept members of the class of 2008.

Seated beside her "distracted" opponent at our head-to-head candidate interview, it was Halvorson who fudged, stumbled and stammered. Asked to explain her one-and-done tenure as representative of the 11th District, she blurted out that voters can be "fickle." She later said that was a bad choice of words. Asked to name federal programs she would target for spending cuts, she couldn't think of one. Over and over she offered, lamely, that voters should send her back to Washington so she could help "innovate" the country out of its current mess. We don't think so.

Frankly, I'd prefer to keep the ethically-challenged Jackson at this point. I'm no fan of the chicago tribune and I'm surprised they chose Jackson but I'm glad they did, and it's certainly true that a smart guy like Jackson can run circles around a hackish person like Halvorson. I'm watching the video from the interview and it really is a proverbial massacre, I think any Halvorson supporter would be hard pressed to keep supporting her after seeing this video. It's that bad.

They're often as rough on Republicans as they are on Democrats. It's just that Democrats give them way more BS to discredit than Republicans do in this state. It's a pretty balanced paper, which is so rare in the US.

Boy do they hate Quinn, though. :)

From IL-09, familial roots in MI-14, college in PA-02/07, and working for the summer in DC-AL.

Ugh, what a joke of a paper. Its sports section is amazing but its written for a less educated audience than the Tribune is written for and it shows by the general lack of quality of the editorials and informative articles.

From IL-09, familial roots in MI-14, college in PA-02/07, and working for the summer in DC-AL.

That's why they backed Barack Obama in 2008, backed the first two opponents of Peter Roskam (who was a very well liked member of the Illinois Senate known for bipartisanship and bringing sides together), and backed Bill Foster over Randy Hultgren, right? They're a bunch of right wingers! Oh wait...

From IL-09, familial roots in MI-14, college in PA-02/07, and working for the summer in DC-AL.

when the Tribune was a conservative paper. That's been years and years.

On a side I smile everytime I see WGN on the cable. The Tribune company started WGN(Radio and TV) and naturally named their stations by those call letters. "World's Greatest Newspaper" was what WGN stood for and yes that was on their frontpage for many years. In some ways the Tribune was the best paper in America for years.

editorials are stacked with the worst (well, to me) type of deficit hawks and they have been on a one-paper crusade against Quinn since he got into office. I'm not saying the paper is worthless, and I'm not saying it's hackish, I'm saying it has a significant rightward lean and that it's not my favorite paper. And that their endorsements often seem to based upon flimsy or nonsensical rational (just look at their endorsement of Duckworth!)

I'm trying not to Lol alone in public right now. An open seat situation in a D wave year is the only situation where Democrats would have a shot here. Shreveport and its environs are, in an ancestral and down allot sense, the most Republican areas of this district. An urban candidate won't do it. The Dems would need a rural populist. End of story.

The Democrats are really grasping at straws if they think they can win LA-4. Paul Carmouche was about the best candidate they could hope for as the longtime Caddo Parish District Attorney and even he couldn't win it in an open seat situation under the best possible circumstances. This seat is safe R for any incumbent.

OK, that's not true. I concede Mitt has moved into a narrow Michigan lead and has stabilized in Arizona with a sizable lead. He's certainly favored to win the latter and I'd say slightly favored in the former (though he might yet fall short of a majority of delegates).

I'm not a Rasmussen subscriber, but I'd be interested to see the crosstabs for this question if I was:

7* Are you certain you will vote for that candidate or is it possible that something come up that causes you to change your mind?

I'm wondering how much of this was the debate, and how much of this is continued movement toward Mitt that was already underway. I suspect more the latter.

"After reviewing the baseless challenge to my campaign's nominating petitions, the facts are as clear today as they were when the petitions were filed - we have met the required threshold of 1,000 valid signatures to appear on the primary ballot," Altmire said in a statement. A hearing has been scheduled for March 2 in Pittsburgh.

Ryan, will you be attending in your tank? You should probably just park on top of Altmire's car or something when he's in the hearing. :p That would probably be the capper of a horrible day (getting booted from the ballot and finding your car under a tank).

From IL-09, familial roots in MI-14, college in PA-02/07, and working for the summer in DC-AL.

The nastiness in this race is surprising. I did not expect it to get this nasty this quickly. I still think we should have gerrymandered Altmire, Critz, and Doyle into the same seat just to see how nasty the primary got.

Has ample time to recover in TX. In the latest poll after dropping out he broke even. He just fits Texas very well. I doubt anyone can beat him in a primary or general election if he governs like he's governed in the last 12 years. If he steps aside, Abbott will be almost governor-elect in the primary and general election.
We might still get another president in a wheel chair? Who knows.

I've seen him speak twice, at the last two CPACs. The first time, he was electric, and the immediate buzz in the room was "Why isn't this guy running for President?" This year, he was a little more subdued, but it was the closest to the old Perry I had seen since before the campaign. I came away thinking that if he never had to go unscripted, he would have won the nomination.

This is in response to an Elizabeth Warren radio ad that has been on the airwaves the last couple of days, hitting Brown on this issue. Martha Coakley tried to hit him on a very similar piece of legislation in the MA legislature in the waning days of the special election.

had momentum in Michigan before the debate. He may have pulled into a tie or was a few points behind going into the debate, now looks like he has a single digit lead. In Arizona, looks like he may get to double digits.

I remember back in 2002 when I was saying that in 10 years VA and NC would go Dem for president while AR and WV would be rock-solid GOP I was scoffed at. I guess I was overly-pessimistic! ;)

Anyway, the metaphor I used then was a pendulum. The South is swinging with Northerners moving into the urbanizing Atlantic Coast states while the Mississippi Valley & Appalachia are relatively rural and stagnant. In the former, all the states are gradually shifting Dem. In the latter, 'blue dog' swing voters are increasingly stabilizing for the GOP.

I'm content with my ratings of GA and SC, though I agree the political landscape needs to shift notably in Obama's direciton (i.e., 2008 redux) for them to flip.

It is not NC or VA, the black % share of the population decreased by roughly 1.5% between 2000 and 2010 to 27.7%. The growth is occuring in coastal counties (Horry, Beaufort, Dorchester, Berkely) York County outside Charlotte, and Greenville/Spartanburg. The Democratic rural black counties are shedding population. None of these counties with growth are trending Democrat, the opposite could be arqued though. I would say Horry County with the most increase in retirees and out of state transplants, is the most Republican trending county in the state. Charleston County you could make a case for, but the 44.7% Obama got in 2008, he won't get in 2012. In fact I don't see another Democrat reaching that for a while.

It's not that South Carolina isn't evidencing similar patterns, it's that the trend/countertrend has balanced itself out thus far. In Virginia and North Carolina the urban trend toward Democrats has also spilled out into the suburbs and outstripped the rural trend toward the GOP. In South Carolina, the urban trend toward Democrats is equally evident but hasn't much spilled out into the suburbs and has been counterbalanced by the rural trend toward the GOP.

In the past two decades, both Columbia and Charleston have moved over 10% toward the Democrats. Greenville has moved 4% toward Democrats and so has Berkeley County outside Charleston and Beaufort County. York, Lexington, and Spartanburg have been pretty stable (Lexington remarkably so, ranging between +21 to +23 GOP throughout).

Horry County is just weird. It's gone from +7R to +16R. I don't know what's wrong with those people. Evidently it's become a haven for Republican retirees!

Richland (Columbia) has become the most Democratic county in the state (not by percent but by votes). I think the black population of the county is closing in on 50%. Charleston County has been trending Democratic somewhat, but is a swing county (all county offices are held by Republicans). Would argue Berkely, Dorchester, and Beaufort are trending slighly Republican. The pvi because of the Obama election might say otherwise, but not countywide, statehouse elections and being on the ground. And then you have Horry which is becoming one of the most Republicn counties in the state. So in most of these states (GA,NC,VA) many argue a Democratic trend. I somewhat agree/somewhat disagree. A big difference is the Democratic base vote (African Americans) is increasing in those states, while in SC it is decreasing. The white vote is debateable. But I would say you could argue a Republican trend in SC more than you could a Democratic one.

I think all your democratic states are right but I think that NC is definitely "Lean R" now and every state you have as "Lean GOP" seems more "Likely GOP" to me. I also don't see CA, CT, AR, LA, or TX flipping under any circumstances.

But not really screwed according to Goldy's analysis.
The D analysis I would want without the bias. I know that Ds hate her because she actually calls them out. It's an R+5 district and it probably only matters if Peterson retires. I hope he retires because he doesn't want to run a race.

Peterson is formiable but lets be clear he has faced the bum of month candidates since perhaps 1994. That's the beauty of being a strong incumbent. You do not face top tier candidates. In 2010 a no name guy raised 400K(chump change but MN7 is a cheap media market) and held him to 55%.

So I think the 68 year old Peterson is still the champ but he has not really been tested for years. I do note that one reason candidates retire is because they tire of tough campaigns. If Peterson coasts again in 2012 that does not get him closer to retirement so GOP go. Take him on in 2012.

Also said first that they are running again.
I'm not saying that Peterson will retire, only that such type of incumbents have a tendency to hang it up after get a serious challenger even though they might not be very vulnerable. He might be the favorite, but he'll have to campaign hard.

She would have been a shoe-in for re-election to her seat. I hadn't heard anything about this, which surprised me, until today. I had a friend in her office who told me she laughed when some reporter said she might not run for re-election a few days ago. I just didn't get why; I thought Hoffman would wait for Peterson to retire.

She also just had a big legislative victory yesterday after the Castle doctrine bill passed (or as the DFLers affectionately call it, Shoot First Bill) the Senate.

Peterson will definitely take it seriously and will have to work hard for re-election. I think it is lean D or likely D now, somewhere inbetween there.

I was curious to see if the Iron Range and farmland DFLers backed this, and it appears a few did, but not enough to make it veto-proof.

And for the record, I am neutral on this bill. I am all for gun rights, and used to belong to the NRA. But having cops and sheriffs comes out against this with such force makes me think the language needs to be changed substantially.

with my thoughts. The question is whether Peterson has anything to go to DC for? I think GOP control is locked in 2012. An Obama re-election would certainly secure the house for 2014 and maybe for the decade. Peterson will likely never be AG chairman as a D? So maybe he bails?

It's 168 miles by car, but the Silicon Valley and the Central Valley might as well be 10,000 miles from each other, as the two areas have nothing in common. No one from Visalia could elected in Sunnyvale or vice versa.

Nunes is in a 59-35 Whitman district. Even a Democrat from Visalia, I'm sure there are a few, would have no chance.

Yet I admire someone running a race they know they'll lose. At the convention there's a lot of signage for Emken, Ramirez, and Hughes, none of whom will get within a whisper of Feinstein.

Just keeps getting better. Rothman would like Jewish voters to vote for him and then switch back to Indy or Republican please. Then gets mad for Pascrell for bringing Religion into the campaign, as he chides Pascrell for having an event on Ash Wednesday. Love it.

I suspect it will get a lot nastier and a lot more desperate as we approach the primary in June. NJGOP can sit back and watch all the Democratic campaign money essentially getting flushed down the Passaic River...

Roger Weiner, a county commissioner with his own mini-Weinergate (read about that elsewhere), who is running against Wicker, put together this lol-worthy website. http://rogerweinerforsenate.co...

Putting aside the many stock photos of random people, or the Democratic Party logo that looks like it was drawn by a 10 year old in MS Paint, the website prominently features a panoramic view of the snow-capped peaks of Mississippi.

The major problem is that Obama is not close to the studio, rather than the celebrity set who linked to the Clintons, which hurts him a lot here. He also has never been close to the Southern trial lawyer community who are not pleased about the judicial consequences of 2010 at the state level.

If this were Bill Clinton running for reelection, Citizens United would have been the doom of the GOP. Clinton would be raising trial lawyer money in eight figure increments, Romney would be stuck begging at Rove's feet. But Obama is not Clinton.

The state Supreme Court on Friday upheld a circuit judge's ruling that this year's legislative redistricting bill is unconstitutional, and it ordered elections for the General Assembly to be run in the districts in place since 2002.

Also, I think Beshear won't have a lot of room to maneuver if a GOP KY State House drew a map that met all of the conditions set forth by the Kentucky Supreme Court.

I mean, what's Beshear going to do?! - Veto a constitutionally drawn map, and demand instead an unconstitutional KY State House map that helps KY Democrats in violation of a direct Supreme Court order?!!